AFTER TWENTY YEARS BY O. HENRY The policeman on the beat ...

Old Behrman, with his red eyes, plainly streaming, shouted
his contempt and derision for such idiotic imaginings.
"Vass!" he cried. "Is dere people in de world mit der
foolishness to die because leafs dey drop off from a
confounded vine? I haf not heard of such a thing. No, I will
not bose as a model for your fool hermit-dunderhead. Vy do
you allow dot silly pusiness to come in der prain of her?
Ach, dot poor lettle Miss Johnsy."
"She is very ill and weak," said Sue, "and the fever has left
her mind morbid and full of strange fancies. Very well, Mr.
Behrman, if you do not care to pose for me, you needn't.
But I think you are a horrid old--old flibbertigibbet."
"You are just like a woman!" yelled Behrman. "Who said I
will not bose? Go on. I come mit you. For half an hour I haf
peen trying to say dot I am ready to bose. Gott! dis is not
any blace in which one so goot as Miss Yohnsy shall lie
sick. Some day I vill baint a masterpiece, and ve shall all go
away. Gott! yes."
Johnsy was sleeping when they went upstairs. Sue pulled
the shade down to the window-sill, and motioned Behrman
into the other room. In there they peered out the window
fearfully at the ivy vine. <strong>The</strong>n they looked at each other for
a moment without speaking. A persistent, cold rain was
falling, mingled with snow. Behrman, in his old blue shirt,
took his seat as the hermit-miner on an upturned kettle for a
rock.
When Sue awoke from an hour's sleep the next morning she
found Johnsy with dull, wide-open eyes staring at the drawn
green shade.
"Pull it up; I want to see," she ordered, in a whisper.
Wearily Sue obeyed.
But, lo! after the beating rain and fierce gusts of wind that
had endured through the livelong night, there yet stood out
against the brick wall one ivy leaf. It was the last on the
vine. Still dark green near its stem, but with its serrated
edges tinted with the yellow of dissolution and decay, it
hung bravely from a branch some twenty feet above the
ground.
"It is the last one," said Johnsy. "I thought it would surely
fall during the night. I heard the wind. It will fall to-day, and
I shall die at the same time."
"Dear, dear!" said Sue, leaning her worn face down to the
pillow, "think of me, if you won't think of yourself. What
would I do?"
But Johnsy did not answer. <strong>The</strong> lonesomest thing in all the
world is a soul when it is making ready to go on its
mysterious, far journey. <strong>The</strong> fancy seemed to possess her
more strongly as one by one the ties that bound her to
friendship and to earth were loosed.
<strong>The</strong> day wore away, and even through the twilight they
could see the lone ivy leaf clinging to its stem against the
wall. And then, with the coming of the night the north wind
was again loosed, while the rain still beat against the
windows and pattered down from the low Dutch eaves.
When it was light enough Johnsy, the merciless,
commanded that the shade be raised.
<strong>The</strong> ivy leaf was still there.
Johnsy lay for a long time looking at it. And then she called
to Sue, who was stirring her chicken broth over the gas
stove.
"I've been a bad girl, Sudie," said Johnsy. "Something has
made that last leaf stay there to show me how wicked I was.
It is a sin to want to die. You may bring me a little broth
now, and some milk with a little port in it, and--no; bring
me a hand-mirror first, and then pack some pillows about
me, and I will sit up and watch you cook."
An hour later she said.
"Sudie, some day I hope to paint the Bay of Naples."
<strong>The</strong> doctor came in the afternoon, and Sue had an excuse to
go into the hallway as he left.
"Even chances," said the doctor, taking Sue's thin, shaking
hand in his. "With good nursing you'll win. And now I must
see another case I have downstairs. Behrman, his name is-some
kind of an artist, I believe. Pneumonia, too. He is an
old, weak man, and the attack is acute. <strong>The</strong>re is no hope for
him; but he goes to the hospital to-day to be made more
comfortable."
<strong>The</strong> next day the doctor said to Sue: "She's out of danger.
You've won. Nutrition and care now--that's all."
And that afternoon Sue came to the bed where Johnsy lay,
contentedly knitting a very blue and very useless woolen
shoulder scarf, and put one arm around her, pillows and all.
"I have something to tell you, white mouse," she said. "Mr.
Behrman died of pneumonia to-day in the hospital. He was
ill only two days. <strong>The</strong> janitor found him on the morning of
the first day in his room downstairs helpless with pain. His
shoes and clothing were wet through and icy cold. <strong>The</strong>y
couldn't imagine where he had been on such a dreadful
night. And then they found a lantern, still lighted, and a
ladder that had been dragged from its place, and some
scattered brushes, and a palette with green and yellow
colors mixed on it, and--look out the window, dear, at the
last ivy leaf on the wall. Didn't you wonder why it never